Trichy, not Chennai, preferred for education

The capital of Tamil Nadu might have 22 hours of quality power, but it is Trichy that premier national institutes seem to prefer when it comes to education.

The tier-II city, always known for its excellence in school education, already boasts of an Indian Institute of Management (IIM), a National Institute of Design (NID), a National Law School (NLS), a National Institute of Technology (NIT) apart from Bharathidasan Institute of Management and Anna University of Technology and will now get an Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT).

IIM-Trichy, which now operates from the NIT campus, will move into a 172-acre campus in 2-3 years. "For an educational institute, the campus is most important and in Chennai, we wouldn't have such a big campus," says Godwin Tennyson, external affairs chairperson for IIM-Trichy. There are power cuts ranging from four to 12 hours in Trichy. "But we have installed generators and only wish we had better flight connectivity to different cities, especially Mumbai and Delhi," he adds. IIM-Trichy, which now has around 200 students, plans to have 500 on the new campus.
The IIIT, announced in this year's policy note, will function from a 56.37-acre campus at Sethurapatti village in Srirangam from the 2013-14 academic year. "The main objective is to cater to skilled human resource requirement in Information Technology and related areas. It will function under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode with the Centre and the State Government as partners," says the policy note.
The NIT, one of the early entrants, has about 5,000 students. "Trichy is at the centre of the state, and is a hub for industry. It is easily accessible, and is connected by rail and has an airport. We also wanted to ease the traffic away from Chennai," said higher education minister P Palaniappan.
Experts say there's an eco-system of sorts in Trichy. "This is because the relationship between universities and industries is better. And naturally, the employability of students here is much better," said Prof K Parthasarathy, director at the institute of employment and career development at Bharathidasan University. There are 45 arts and science colleges, 25 engineering colleges, 40 polytechnic colleges and 13 B schools spread over Trichy, Tanjore and Pudukottai.
"Trichy also has about 200 higher secondary schools of high quality," said Parthasarathy.
While the top ranker in the recently released class 12 state board exams wasn't from Trichy, the district has one the highest pass percentages and a high percent of those scoring more than 1,000 out of 1,200. "Our pass percentage jumped from 86% to 93% this year. Also, more than 20% of the students scored more than 1,000. The primary reason is the quality of teachers," said K Selvakumar, chief education officer for Trichy